Time to dust off the keyboard. My brave boys in blue have returned form their raid on the Scandinavian coast (how do you like them apples, Vikings?) and here are the battle reports from WoffBoot XII.
First up: the Death Guard!
The Tumultuous Creed: Thousand Sons
- Exalted Sorcerer, Force Stave, Inferno Bolt Pistol, Frag & Krak Grenades
Warlord: High Magister
Relic: Helm of the Third Eye
Prescience, Death Hex, Smite - Daemon Prince with wings, 2 x Malefic Talons
Gaze of Fate, Warptime, Smite - 6 x Rubric Marines, Force Stave, Warpflame Pistol, Inferno Boltguns
Weaver of Fates - 10 x Tzaangor, Tzaangor Blades, Brayhorn
- 10 x Chaos Cultists, Shotgun, Autoguns, Heavy Stubber
- 5 x Scarab Occult Terminators Force Stave, Inferno Combi-Bolters, Power Swords, Soulreaper Cannon, Hellfyre Missile Rack
Glamour of Tzeentch - Defiler, Battle Cannon, Twin Lascannon, Defiler Scourge, Defiler Claws, Combi-bolter
- Lord of Contagion, Manreaper
Warlord: Revoltingly Resilient,
Relic: The Suppurating Plate - Malignant Plaguecaster, Corrupted Staff
Miasma of Pestilence, Putrescent Vitality, Smite - 5 x Plague Marines, Power Fist, Boltguns, Plasma Gun, Blight Launcher
- 5 x Plague Marines, Power Fist, Boltguns, Plasma Gun, Blight Launcher
- 16 x Poxwalkers, Improvised Weapons
- Foul Blightspawn, Plague Sprayer
- Noxious Blightbringer, Cursed Plague Bell, Plasma Pistol
- Foetid Bloat-Drone, Heavy Blight Launcher, Plague Probe
- Myphitic Blight-Haulers, Multi-melta, Missile Launcher, Gnashing Maw, Bile Spurt
Points: 1000 | Battalion: 6 CPs
Game 1: Cleanse and Capture
A simple mission to get us started, and I get to choose Dawn of War deployment. I put my Terminators into the teleportation and used the Webway Infiltration stratagem to also put the Tzaangors into reserve.The Defiler chose the spot with the best avenues of fire, the Cultists screened around him, the Rubrics clustered behind a ruin on the left flank and the two characters stayed back to support.
I got the first turn, and my objective cards were not great (Scour the Skies, Behind Enemy Lines), but there was one objective right in front of the Blight-Hauler, and I already had that ugly little thing marked for death, since its multi-melta was one of the few things that could threaten my Defiler.
So despite telling myself I shouldn't, I fell back on my old trick of alpha-striking the Terminators against the Leofa's left flank, and hoping they would perform better than every other time I've tried this tactic.
The Tzaangors stayed in the web, and my castle at the back held fast. Then it was off to my very first Psychic phase - I roll a Perils of the Warp! After spending a Command Point to ensure I didn't lose a psyker on my very first roll, I went on to a lacklustre round of casting: a few buffs, but nothing major.
In the shooting phase, the Rubrics took position to being a small-arms duel with the Plague Marines (with cover saves, resilience and not the best weapons, they were both at it for a while) and the Defiler took the Blight-Hauler down to half wounds.
When it came to the Terminators, I spent another Command Point on Veterans of the Long War, then got greedy and split my fire between the Blight-Hauler and the Plague Marines. It almost paid off: I took down a couple of Plague Marines, then wiped out all of the Blight-Hauler's wounds - only for him to recover a single one with Disgustingly Resilient.
Determined to take off that last wound, I charge in with the Terminators, fail the charge and lose one to Overwatch. (I hope those Terminators aren't in a union, I really don't treat them well).
So not the best starts, but I do get off the starting blocks for the objective.
In Leofa's turn, he drew some nice objective securing missions, so held fast on his right flank, while moving to wipe me out on the left. The Blight-Hauler, Blightbringer and Plague Marines all shot and charged into the Scarab Terminators (the Death Guard plasma gunner blowing himself up as he did so).
When the dust was settled, I had a single Aspiring Sorcerer Terminator clinging on to his last wound, and had fallen behind in the victory points.
In my next turn, I went with some bold steps: the Blight-Drone was sneakily hiding from my Defiler's guns, so I dropped the Tzaangor out of the webway to assault it (a big ask, but they might chase it into the open, and at least they would be behind enemy lines).
The Defiler finally managed to shoot off the Blight-Hauler, earning me First Blood, but psychic and shooting elsewhere was something of a bust - the Death Guard were properly hunkered down in the ruins, giving them either high cover saves or obscuring them completely.
To top if off,the Tzaangor failed their charge, even when I used my last command point to re-roll. At least I scored Behind Enemy Lines, but they wouldn't be there for much longer.
Predictably, in the Death Guard's turn, they whole army turned and wiped out the poor Tzaangor. For his part, the Scarab Occult Terminator weathered a lot of shooting, and only a subsequent Smite finished him off.
We'd traded a few pieces, but most of our armies were still intact. But Leofa had the advantage of victory points, so with time ticking away, I would need to take the initiative.
As luck would have it (or not), my next objective was a Priority Orders - if my Warlord could achieve this, it could bring me a shedload of points and get me back in the lead.
Unfortunately, the mission was to defend the objective right in from of the Death Guard's lines - so I'd have to get my Sorcerer there, and keep him alive for two turns.
Accordingly, my whole battle line picked up its old kit-bags and sped towards the Death Guard lines. My Rubrics were gunned down in the process, but everything else made it across intact.
In response, Leofa surrounded the objective with Poxwalkers, with the Plaguecaster and Lord of Contagion as the hard centre to this evil malteaser.
What followed next was an old-fashioned Age-of-Sigmar scrum in the centre: my Daemon Prince beat up the Lord of Contagion, but Disgustingly Resilient saved him again; the Defiler and Cultists cut down a lot of Poxwalkers, but not enough to push them off the objective
The battle ended when the Plague-Drone (now down to half-wounds, since the Defiler was moving into a firing position), swung around the side and drew a bead on the Exalted Sorcerer. In my haste to overrun the objective, I had left him exposed at the end of the line, so he could be shot to pieces by the heavy blight-launcher.
Without any means of grabbing more victory points, I conceded then and there.
Final thoughts
Oh dear. 0-2 against the Death Guard, but I felt pretty good about my chances in this one. If I had to blame my luck, I'd say I had a bad draw of the objective cards and a generally whiffed psychic phase (kind of important to the Thousand Sons army!).
If I was blaming my generalship, I would say that I had over-committed the Terminators without support (and then split their fire), and then been too cautious with the Defiler. Once that Blight-Hauler was gone, I should have scampered its spider-legs all the way to the back end and started putting the Death Guard under pressure.
Next opponent: the most brutal Tyranid army you'll ever see!
No comments:
Post a Comment